Forsaking All Others
by Thegardnerd
Summary: A man is driven to desparate ends to reunite with his lost love.


**Forsaking All Others**

"Before friends and loved ones, we consecrate this ground by the Light to be the final resting place of the remains of Ashlyn Lavon. May the Light embrace her, and she be not forsaken in death. Blessed be the Light."

The Bishop intoned these words, and the invocation echoed from the crowd in mumbled penitence. One man was silent. He was garbed in the worn clothing of a lifelong farmer, though this particularly clean outfit was carefully chosen for the funeral.

He was a man of Westfall, a simple man who didn't have much use for finery; everything a farmer owned had a measured practicality. Remove the mask of grief that adorned his face, and add one of his practical implements, and the man would look as he did on any other morning, ready to continue the toil and strife of working the land that was called the breadbasket of the Alliance.

For Dannil Lavon, that toil wasn't some lot he had cast; it was his duty, and his honor. His pride came in the harvest, in feeding his neighbors, in working hard for 9 months and making use of that work for 3. He was silent now because, after all that work, the Light had abandoned him and did not deserve his blessing. The Light had never blessed him; his labors had, his family had, but the Light ignored him even when he was most desperate. It had done nothing to ease his beloved's suffering or prevent her death. Why did the Light deserve his utterance now?

Hope also held his tongue, a desperate irresponsible hope that if he withheld his acquiescence of the Bishop's prayer, Ashlyn could find her way back. If she was not let go into the Light's embrace by the man she loved most, she could still be with him, in a sense.

A sense of her was all he had left. His mind was so fogged with grief that she seemed a memory of a dream to him. She drifted on the edge of his vision, like ethereal clouds of smoke that he could never grasp. He couldn't see her face, not in this memory of her. His physical eyes drifted to the shroud that covered her decaying countenance. He wished for a moment to lash out, to rip the veil from her wrappings, to gaze upon his dear wife's face, to stare into her eyes, eyes that had been a hearth to Dannil's soul, had made his worst troubles seem small, silly, insignificant.

The mad thought came and went quickly, but it left behind a shadow, a ghost of an inclination that wormed its way into his thoughts, chewing away at his sanity. It grew as it fed; bridling his thoughts, driving them back to the couple's wedding day. His grief had left, or perhaps been overwhelmed by the shadow of his envisioned outburst. He could again clearly see his wife, dressed in the finest white linen. He did not now remember how he had traded his father's prized steel plow for the material, or how he worked late into the night for weeks on nearby ranches to pay a seamstress from the city to fashion the dress. The dress and what it covered faded, his memory only allowed for her face as it had been at her happiest, and he relished in it. The recollection fed the idea which grew in his mind as he recalled his vow to her that day.

"I, Dannil Lavon, for all that I am and under the Light, make this sacred vow to be yours always, Ashlyn, forsaking all others, till the Light embraces us both."

He mentally repeated these words. His internal voice grew louder until it overpowered his will and he was muttering the vow under his breath as the service concluded. The growing thought overtook his faculties, and he collapsed to his knees, softly weeping and repeating his vow. He could not see the Bishop approach him, or hear his soft words of comfort. He looked only at the body before him, wrapped in dull gray burlap, far from the angelic white she wore in his mind.

The sun set and the grave diggers tried for hours to rouse him. As their desire to get home to a warm bed finally defeated their respect for the grieving they went to work. He only came out of his haze when the diggers had left, and his wife was obscured by the earth. With an eye single to his purpose, he left the grave.

Dannil returned to his wife's side just hours later, and appeared ready for a journey. He knelt at the grave, giving one last goodbye to his wife's memory, kneeling and kissing the partly sanctified ground where she lay. He turned back to his wagon, and retrieved the shovel from the back. Just as he had toiled in his fields so many days, he got to work, turning over earth one scraping shovel full at a time, working towards the harvest of the idea which had possessed him. As he worked he muttered again his vow:

"I,"  
-_scrape_-  
"Dannil Lavon, for all that I am"  
-_scrape_-  
"and under the Light,"  
-_scrape_-  
"make this sacred vow to be yours"  
-_scrape_-  
"always, Ashlyn"  
-_scrape_-  
"forsaking all others, till the Light embraces us both."

He vowed his eternal love hundreds of times before Ashlyn was free from her prison of soil. He bent down to retrieve his beloved, lifting her limp form and gently carrying it to the wagon. He turned his eyes quickly as he noticed -in the periphery of his vision- the shroud covering her face begin to slip. He did not want his memory of her to be spoiled by her current condition, and so when her body lay still in the wagon, he felt for the shroud, carefully placing it again to cover her pale visage. He had left his farm untouched, had left no word for his neighbors, he had brought only a shovel, his wagon and his horse. He was driven now by only one thought.

"..always, Ashlyn, forsaking all others, till the Light embraces us both."

This idea had spread like a plague until it infected his entire being. What was the Light if not love? What if the love he had for Ashlyn _was_ the Light, and without it he was cast off, forsaken from the warm embrace he had known with his bride. The notion bored a cavity into his thoughts as he drove the horse at a deafening pace. The cavity he filled with the memory of the face he longed to see again. He rode east, toward the Redridge Mountains. When he came to crossroads he went off the road to avoid delay by curious guardsmen. He passed Lakeshire as the sun rose, ignoring the waves and hails of farmers cutting into the frosty ground of the spring morning.

The frost is clearing quickly, his now dormant farmer mind thought; today is going to be a hot one. He ignored the formerly dominant voice and pressed on, harder than before. His plan was to buy another horse after his unsustainable pace inevitably would drive his loyal farm steed to collapse, but he pushed aside that thought as well.

He reached the summit of the peak just as the sun reached that of the sky, and with his mind so focused he could not notice the shadows surrounding him in the rocks of the mountain. Pain flashed through his body as a blow struck his head. It was instantly brushed aside by the agony of being interrupted in his task. The world darkened, and his bride's face was the final image he saw.

Dannil awoke to the crackle of a campfire, and sprang to his feet. His action proved impossible as the bonds on his wrists and ankles painfully announced their presence. He frantically looked around the camp he was imprisoned within, and saw stirring heaps scattered about the enclosure. The heaps were each a sleeping orc, the unmistakable green skin on their chests and backs stretching and retracting with each slumbering breath. He noticed that his stirring had caught the attention of the two alert orcs standing at a tree across the camp, one of which now was coming towards him.

As he gazed in terror the green monster fell upon him, grabbing with a melon-sized fist the ropes that bound his chest and tossing him over a shoulder in one swift motion. He could see his now horseless wagon, empty. They entered a tent and he was thrown to the grown.

"Ro'th Ka!" came the guttural shout from the orc inside the tent, and the brute who had brought him in left Dannil's side, departing the structure. He looked around the room, seeing the various trappings of what he recognized from stories as a warlock of the Horde, terror of human folklore for the better part of the last 50 years. He finally looked at the warlock, finding that he was meeting the dark wizard's gaze.

"You are very curious, human," The demon binder began, his words thick with an accent that was brutal and jagged. "You ride alone, through territory you must know is patrolled by my clan, and you carry only a corpse. A single decaying body of a repulsive human female, pulled by a horse who will not recover from the stress you have made it endure."

Dannil's agony returned as the orc spoke. The thought of the horrifying manners which his beloved might have been defiled by this dark creature sent waves of despair over him, which the warlock mistook for shock.

"You are surprised I speak your _flowery_ tongue, human?" The orc's disdain for Dannil was clear, "I was imprisoned in one of your camps following our Horde's glorious march from the portal." Arrogance and pride filled the orc's face as he spoke, and continued, "I learned your language in secret, so I could fool the pathetic guards and escape! And now I use it to ask you: to what end do you carry this dead woman with such ferocious intent?"

"What have you done with her?" Shouted Dannil, fury consuming the agony which had filled him. "Release me, monster! The Light damn you!"

The orc's slow laughter filled Dannil's heart and compounded his rage. "So... This woman, she must have been your life mate?" the orc mused, stroking his long black beard which was braided tightly. "What were you doing with her? Perhaps taking her to be buried with her family? You humans, entombing your dead under the earth, to be devoured by the worms! I may have abandoned the spiritual rites of my fathers, but I will be consumed by fire when I meet my end, be it demonic or that of the pyre."

Dannil seized on the warlock's implication, his mind clouded by rage. He surprised himself and the orc with his outburst "She'll not be buried! I swore to her we would be together until the Light embraced us both! I am not in such embrace, and she needn't be subjected to that fate, I will see to it!"

The warlock stared at him for what seemed an eternity. He was working something out, and when he had come to his conclusion he spoke, almost whispered, a hint of wonder lighting his voice,

"You... you seek the Banshee Queen, don't you?"

Hearing the words spoken aloud slid the final piece to lock in Dannil's mind. His vow would be eternal, and his life. He had heard whispers of the Forsaken; Lordaeron's dead, risen by the Lich King but somehow freed from his command. They were free minds able to live unnaturally long lives, only suffering death from destruction by force. They had no fear of foul diseases like the one that had taken his Ashlyn. He had driven with purpose unrealized, and only now as he heard the warlock's question, was he awakened to the end he was driven to by dreams. The warlock took his silence as agreement and continued.

"A bold intention, and clever, for a _human_. Your grief brought you to question your whole purpose, to forsake, and to be forsaken." The orc paused, his face contorting into a terrifying grin, "What a great joke that you should fall into my camp! My abandonment of the spirits and elements led me to seek alliance with the Blackrock, and to likewise abandon the fool who sits in Orgrimmar, plotting peace with the humans. Your plan to abandon your people makes us kindred. While I don't expect you to survive your journey, less succeed in your mad goal, it will not be I who impedes you."

"To satisfy my soldiers' bloodlust, I will announce that you have been slain in my service, your soul entrapped to power my spells." "Your horse is tied behind my tent, and you saw where your wagon lay. Take the object of your obsession and go, before I commit the act I plan to lie about."

The warlock moved a sheet on his left, revealing the still wrapped body of Ashlyn. Dannil felt heat from his bonds, and noticed the orc reciting a slow incantation, burning the ropes that held him. Had he been thinking clearly, he might have stopped to consider the possibility that the warlock was deceiving him, but in desperate desire see his plan through, he brushed all hint of doubt aside. He moved quickly, sweeping his bride's corpse up into his arms and slipped out of the tent, stepping lightly around the sleeping orcs. He led his horse, the beast shivering as much from the day's run as the cold of the night, and he reflected on the warlock's words.

"Your grief brought you to question your whole purpose, to forsake, and to be forsaken."

There was no question now, no reluctance. His goal was solid. He would go to the city of the dead and petition for unliving, eternal amnesty. He and his beloved would draw breath for all time. The Light would never embrace them, and his vow would be absolute and unending.

As Dannil found the road again, he surveyed the landmarks around him. The towering summit of Blackrock Mountain loomed to the south like a colossal sentry, watching over the valley he found himself in. The orcs had covered much ground while he was unconscious; he could see the gate of Loch Modan ahead in the distance. He approached the sealed doorway and was at a loss of what to do, so he simply knocked. He heard mechanical clicks and the shuffle of feet faintly through the enormous door, then a sound, like a window shutter opening, above him. He looked up to see the head of a gnome woman poking through a small hole, about 10 feet above his head.

"State your business, tall one!" Squeaked the gnome, her high pitched voice grating in an attempt at intimidation.

"Just ...traveling from Westfall, little friend," Dannil shouted "I'm riding to visit family in the north!"

The diminutive watcher looked annoyed, "Why didn't you just use the Stormwind-Ironforge Rapid Transit System? The SIRTS is much faster than that beaten down ride you have!" a note of mocking pride marked her declaration, and Dannil scrambled.

"It was, uh...undergoing maintenance at the time, and I could not delay! Could you please let me pass?"

The gnome considered the human's words, and Dannil feared he had made a mistake by lying to the tiny gatekeeper. Finally the gnome spoke, a smirk lighting up her childlike face.

"Blasted human engineers, tinkering with tech way beyond their capacity!"

She closed the shutter and the entire doorway shook, dust cascaded from the hinges as the massive entryway folded in on itself, stopping after creating a space just large enough for Dannil's wagon. The gnome greeted him on the other side.

"You're lucky I was awake fiddling with my latest invention, I'll walk you to the other side where you can hitch a ride with Stoutwing!"

The door shut with a loud rumble as Dannil nervously accompanied the gnome down the hallway.

"Name's Sprocketstab, friend, last in the line of the famous assassins!" The gnome saw Dannil's confusion and smiled, "Never heard of us, have you? Well that's how you know we're the best!" She paused, as if expecting a laugh. Met with Dannil's blank stare, she continued, a slightly disappointed sigh preceding her words "I, of course, didn't want to take up the daggers, so here I am, tending the gate, tinkering with my gadgets. The solitude allows for more work, why you're the first traveler through the gate in months!"

Dannil slowly tuned out the gnome's chatter, his thoughts frantically moving from fear to desperation, fear that his purpose would be discovered, and desperation to reach his journey's end.

"...all the way to the dreaded Undercity!" The gnome finished, and Dannil snapped back from his thoughts.

"What was that?" he asked, and Sprocketstab sighed

"Aren't you even listening, human? I was talking about Stoutwing! He and his flying machine have seen action and carried travelers all over Azeroth, from the jungles of Stranglethorn, to the lands of the undead and the ruins of Lordaeron City!"

Dannil nodded, hiding his excitement, "Oh I see. I'm sorry I was lost in thought." If this dwarf could get him close enough to Lordaeron's ruins, the journey might be quicker than he had thought.

As they reached a doorway the gnome stopped. "It happens to the best of us, big guy, my father tried to teach me the blades time after time, but I could never focus. He always said I was possessed by some itch; the desire to invent was my whole purpose. I left to show him just how possessed I could be, to prove to him and everyone else that I was not following some lost cause, I was only striving to create!" A glint of mad glee flickered through the gnome's eyes which she quickly shook off. "Anyway here we are, Welcome to Loch Modan!" the gnome declared proudly as she opened the door.

The sun was just rising over the mountains to the east, and the reflection off the Loch blinded Dannil; for an instant, he was bathed in Light. He could feel the warm glow filling the cavity his mad thoughts had bored, and breathing life into his soul. In that short moment, he felt as he did when his Ashlyn yet lived. He was the Light, and his love renewed him. It was gone as quickly as it had come and he found himself even more focused on his unholy task. The pair approached a dwarf, his head buried in the engine of a 2 passenger flying machine. Sprocketstab cleared her tiny throat, and the dwarf raised his head to glance at her.

"Another passenger, eh wee one?" Stoutwing blankly asked, and turned back to his work. His muffled voice sounded again, "Will he be payin this time?" he asked.

"I told you to stop with the 'wee one' and 'shortcakes', Stoutwing!" Sprocketstab insisted, her cheeks becoming red with anger and embarrassment. She looked at Dannil, "To tell you the truth, we hadn't got that far."

Dannil swallowed, his only other possession had been his shovel, and the orcs had taken that. "I have no coin, master dwarf, only trade, and a plea for a good cause," he began. "I bring the body of my beloved wife to Chillwind Township, to be buried with her father, fulfilling her last wishes. I can leave you my wagon, a sturdy vehicle made by my father's father, which has carried 3 generations of harvest to market." he said, "And my horse, which could use some rest but is in otherwise good shape."

Stoutwing looked up from his work, first at Dannil, then the wagon, then the horse, and back to Dannil. "The wagon's fine work, no doubt about that; not dwarven mind you but fine for human craft. That horse looks like he's been beatin' up and down the track a bit, but I always have a soft heart for charity, and family. As soon as the Amber Avian is up and running, we'll leave. Shouldn't be more than a few hours."

Dannil's heart sank, he did not want to lose any more time, but this was the best chance he had. Before he could agree, Sprocketstab spoke up, indignant disdain filling her voice,

"A few _hours_? Stand aside you fumbling oaf! This kind of work takes a more delicate hand!" Sprocketstab grabbed a wrench from Stoutwing's toolbox and hopped up to the engine. "A little tap here... An adjustment there... Oil! Give me oil, you hunk of sharp dwarven cheese!"

Stoutwing shook his head as he unhooked the oilcan from his belt and passed it to the little hand sticking out of the engine.

"Thank you! ...alright just a bit of lubricant and that...does it!" She hopped down and continued, "Give her a whirl!"

Stoutwing chuckled at the gnome, and closed the hood on the engine. He grabbed the propeller and thrust it downward swiftly. The engine puttered for a moment before finally roaring to life, the propeller spinning at a blinding speed.

"See, what did I tell you? Just a little Gnomish ingenuity is all you need!" The gnome said as Stoutwing approached Dannil.

"We'll be takin' off shortly, then lad." the dwarf said with a nod, and then smiled, adding "If yer lucky, I may even fly by the ruins of Lordaeron, quite a site, they are. Quite a site."

Dannil swallowed and nodded at the pilot. He turned back to the wagon and retrieved Ashlyn's body. It seemed a bit lighter now, as if it had lost something in the journey. Dannil imagined his beloved's soul departing from the body and wondered if he was too late. He shrugged off this worry and carefully laid his bride's body down before the seat he was to occupy, then strapped himself in. Sproketstab waved as the Amber Avian took off, flying high over the loch. The plane led ghostly wingmen across the surface of the loch, flanked by the craft's shadow and chased by its reflection. He looked back; Blackrock Mountain's twisted peak pierced through the clouds and he marveled at how far he had come. He kept his head down, intending to do so for the rest of the flight. Sometime later, hours maybe, Stoutwing spoke up, hesitation filled his voice as if he had been mulling over the thought since they left the loch.

"Sprocket's not too good at pickin' these things up, but I can tell, just by lookin' at ya laddy. You got some kinda darkness about ya." Dannil breathed in sharply. but the dwarf quickly continued, "Now dunnit tell me what it is, I'd rather go on not knowin, if ya dunnit mind." "Just heed these words, 'He who embraces the Light will know its love, for the Light banishes all darkness.' me father, a priest of the order in Ironforge taught me that." Dannil silently wept, his focus waning. "Just remember those words, boy, and ye'll have comfort for all yer days."

Stoutwing was silent for a long time after that, leaving Dannil to think upon the pilot's words. For the first time in what seemed ages, Dannil thought clearly once again. He was a fool. It wasn't too late to turn back now. He gathered his courage and began to speak, but was cut off by a shout from Stoutwing.

"Look upon the ruins, laddy! That there is the former jewel of Azeroth: Lordaeron! It used to house good king Terenas, and was a shinin' symbol of the power of the Alliance. Now horrors walk those halls, and abominations guard the castle gates. Inside a creature reigns who's heart is as black as the Lich King's: Sylvanas, the Banshee Queen!"

Dannil saw the ruins and immediately retreated once again to his fog of grief. He was close. Achingly close to eternity with his beloved. He was a fool, yes; a fool to ever think of abandoning his quest. As Stoutwing turned his attention back to the controls, he looked down. They were flying over another body of water, yet it was far from the crystal stillness of the dwarven loch. This lake was a putrid green, nearly crusted over with thick patches of moss. He pictured thousands of the Lich King's victims at the bottom of the deep dark water, armies of motionless corpses, forever trapped mid march to oblivion. He shuddered, and seized his opportunity. Clasping his beloved's remains to his chest, he leaped from his seat. He could hear Stoutwing's shouts on the wind as torrents of air rushed past him.

He fell for several seconds, the dark green expanse below rapidly filling his vision. The water suddenly surrounded him, entombing the two lovers in an unnaturally warm embrace. He kicked his legs hard, struggling against his slipping will and the growing will of the dead. Finally his head broke the surface and he gasped. This close to the plagued lands, his lungs brought in death with each struggled draw of breath. Before him rose the fallen towers of the dead city. He leaned his head to the rotting cheek of his dead wife and whispered, "Soon, my love" and forward he swam.

His walk to the city proper passed in a blur of terror and desperation. He saw the silent, ruined throne room, heard the whispers of betrayal echoing on the wind. Guarding the doors were brutish, armor-clad orcs who puzzled at the lone human approaching their watch. They struck him to the ground before he could speak. He suplicated to the greenskinned guards, pleading for an audience between orders shouted in the orcs' violent tongue. A passing ghoul approached him, speaking in broken human language.

"You have come all this way to see the Dark Lady? For what purpose? Speak quickly!"

Dannil kept his eyes to the stone floor. "I seek only the Lady's blessing, so that I and my beloved can be once again united."

The ghoul's laughter sent a chill through Dannil's spine. The horror's rotting hand reached down to the wrapped corpse in the human's hands, and Dannil once again turned his head as the shroud was brushed aside. "You _seek_ undeath? And the same for this one? How pathetically romantic." The ghoul sneered.

Dannil kept his head low. He cringed as screams and wales echoed from far below the stone floor. When his beloved lived again, he would be safe to entertain doubts of his sanity. For now only one thought remained. He voiced this thought, mustering his strength. "I must save her from the final embrace of the Light, for I am not prepared for death, and cannot live without her."

"The living, so foolish. You curse death with your words, yet embrace it in action." The ghoul said, almost scolding. "We could kill you here, and raise you, leaving your beloved behind. We have no use for housewives!"

"Please," Dannil begged, "You cannot curse me further than I am now without her, let us live as eternal subjects in your kingdom. I swear our undying fealty!"

The guard laughed again, the rattling sound erupting from his exposed ribcage, "That... is for the Queen to decide. Bring him to the throne room!"

The guards picked Dannil up and carried him through the cavernous halls of the Undercity. He marveled at how the purported free undead had so remarkably recreated the familiar scenes of human life and culture, as if desperate to reclaim their former identities. He also saw the horrors they had created, in defiance of their former cultural taboos, hulking monsters stitched together from dozens of corpses, mindless Abominations no less terrifying than that which the Lich King had raised. He was taken down a long, curved hallway, ghouls armed to the teeth, or in many cases the gaping hole where teeth once were, flanked the corridor every ten paces. Finally he was placed down on the stone floor again, and heard the chilling voice of the Banshee Queen as she began to speak.

"So...This man wishes to embrace the shadow, and become Forsaken?"

"Yes, lady queen," Dannil stammered. "I wish this for myself and my beloved Ashlyn."

Dannil waited, staring at the black stone floor for what seemed hours. He was terrified to look up, fear of what he might see and fear that his plea may be rejected paralyzed him equally. Finally, the queen's icy, echoing words broke the silence.

"Rise, human."

Dannil rose to his feet and tried to meet the queen's terrible gaze. She...emanated darkness. Her form seemed to blur, shifting in and out of focus as if unseen fingers pressed on his eyes. He felt as he did when he was slipping into sleep, his fleeting thoughts clung desperately to each other, wildly attempting to bond and form haphazard concepts. Shadows crawled about her frame like spiders, and whispers of terror and pain filled his ears, overwhelming what little constitution remained in the former farmer's mind. The Queen smiled slightly before moving, quicker than anything Dannil had ever seen. He heard the unsheathing of her blade and felt the pain of its edge piercing his chest in the same heartbeat.

"Al'shar dor Shar." She whispered, as he collapsed.

...

Darkness was all he knew. He had no form.

He could not see, or hear, or touch. He could cast his thoughts backward in time, but did not find anything more than the darkness. There was the slight inclination that he had once had a name. But it too was swallowed by the darkness. He felt nothing, not cold nor heat, nor hunger nor fatigue. The boundaries of his identity faded, until all that remained was the darkness, occupied with measuring its own expanse.

Some time passed. It may have been a second, or a millennium. All the darkness could say, or think rather, was that there was darkness, and then there wasn't. He did feel now. A heat, faint at first, bloomed from the center of being, then grew outward. Light accompanied the growing heat. The Light, he knew. It was the Light's final embrace. He knew he was destined for it.

"Dannil!" he heard.

He could hear again. His name brought his memory back to him, and he recognized the echoing voice from his past.

"Ashlyn!" he cried and opened his eyes.

He had eyes again, through which he saw her face.

"Dannil, my love, we are together!" She cried, and she reached out for his hands that were there now. As he grasped her he felt a pull from behind, and recalled his journey before the darkness.

"We will be, my love, we will be together forever! Let go, and we will have life eternal!" He said as he loosened his grip.

His final recognition came as euphoric epiphany. What he had been foolishly thinking of the Light's love all his life he knew, now completely, was in actuality the love he and Ashlyn had for one another. Their love had led them each to the other, even here in the space between life and death.

"I don't understand, Dannil, we are together now!" She protested, and he shook his hands slightly to release her grip from him.

"No, Ashlyn this is not life, it is something else, we _can_ have life, together, eternal." he firmly declared. "Let go, my dear Ashlyn, let go so we can be together."

He finally was loose from her grasp, and as he drifted away he smiled at her pleas, she did not understand now but she would.

"No Dannil, what are you doing! We vowed, 'always, Dannil, forsaking all others, till the Light Embraces us both' don't you remember?"

Her voice was distant now, echoing as if coming from the bottom of a well. He drifted, and the light faded until he knew only darkness again, and the pull.

…

His eyes opened to a gray, green blur, and he rose, coughing, hacking, unable to draw breath. He was suffocating. He panicked as he struggled for air, and felt bony fingers grasp him.

"Calm yourself, fool! The instinct to breathe is strong, but you must ignore it! You no longer need such …imperfections; it is all part of the gift of the Dark Lady!"

He gathered his thoughts, and realized the voice was right; He no longer felt the need nor had the capacity to draw breath. His vision finally focused, and he gazed around the room. He was in a dark place, lit only by the faint green glow coming from the walls. The voice belonged to a tall ghoul, clad in the armor of a warrior, wielding a poleaxe taller than he was.

"Good... Good, now... What is your name?" The ghoul asked.

He almost spoke automatically, but then stopped. As much as he tried, he could not remember his own name! "I... I don't know..." he said slowly. He stuttered when he spoke, as if his mouth was not accustomed to the words he was giving it.

Patches of skin were missing from the guard's face allowing the muscles underneath to be seen as they flexed, a motion that might have furled the brow of a living man.

"Hmm...interesting." The guard shrugged, continuing, "Well, you came to us just as the rest of the new ...blood... has; risen by the Val'kyr. The new process seems to have some… unforeseen side effects. Alas, our ranks grow thin, and we cannot afford to turn away …recruits to our cause."

He looked around the room again, and noticed he was alone.

"I feel…empty." He said, the words seemed to stumble on their way out of his mouth. He brought his eyes back to the decayed soldier as he continued with a realization, "I remember something now... about forsaking..."

The guard scoffed and spoke with amusement, "Funny, that you would remember that, I suppose, for that is what you now are. Forsaken."

The ghoul's last word seemed to echo through the dark room. Forsaken; It was as much a state of being as an identity, and he knew, as he took in the unsettling sight of his decayed body, that he was destined for it.


End file.
